A Psalm of Storms and Silence

Life isn't given to be deserved. It's given to be lived. If you can find one thing that makes it worth seeing another day, then you've done all you're meant to do.

If you ever find someone who feels as natural to you as breathing, don’t leave them. Because if you do, you’ll feel as if you’re gasping for air every moment after.

There are choices you make in life that cannot be undone and that cannot be buried. They can only be carried, and you either buckle beneath the weight of them or grow strong enough not to. And growing is always worth it if it helps you get to that next thing that makes life worth living.

Don’t let the mistakes of your past dictate your future.

Queens go to advisors for advice, not permission.

No one had ever looked at him like that, as if his very presence made their world better. He doubted anyone ever would.

Life isn’t given to be deserved. It’s given to be lived. If you can find one thing that makes it worth seeing another day, then you’ve done all you’re meant to do.

You're never going to be the person you were with him again. But each day is a chance to become someone just as good.

[...] love was more like a pebble sinking into a pond, soft as the turn of one page in a story to the next, yet the ripples of it extending outward into everything about the way he saw the world and himself.

No cause that can't withstand justified questioning is truly worth following. If our present can't be sorted neatly into heroes and villains, then neither can our past. It's good that you're doubting your ancestors, and it's good that you're wrestling with what you've been taught. All that means is whatever path you choose, it'll be because it's what you truly believe, not just because someone else wants it for you.

To all those still healing from pain they cannot talk about: the journey isn't easy, but it's always worth it.

Malik himself had no idea why his mind took things he knew were not threats and twisted them until the entire world felt like a battleground.

All stories contain a thread of truth; that's what makes them worth telling.

You don't have to run. You don't have to fight. All you have to do is stand.

When it feels like the world is trying to pull you a million different ways, find the thing you know is yours and hold on to it with all that you are.

You're allowed to choose yourself. You're allowed to leave.

Malik had made more mistakes than he could name, but they had taught him how strong he was. How no matter how many times the world knocked him down, he always found a way to get up again.

Your past doesn't have to dictate your future

Who is the boy, or girl, or person, or paranormal entity who has you so flustered?

He hadn’t needed the promises. Even back then, he would have followed her to the end of the world if she’d only asked.

Every time she'd looked for a savior and hadn't found one, she'd become her own.

He knew all too well how your own mind could force you to undermine your gifts, no matter how much you accomplished.

You couldn't be betrayed by someone you didn't trust.

In the center of a shining palace of alabaster and silver, on a crested hill deep in the heart of a golden desert, there was a boy. And in the center of this boy, there was a tree.

Nobody escapes this world without some sort of trauma, but that doesn’t mean you get to do whatever you want because of it.

All he needed was one thing to keep himself together until tomorrow. Tomorrow itself was another battle, but today? Just one thing.

Are all human boys unable to differentiate lust from bloodlust, or is it just you?